Leaving
by My Ships
Summary: What if Pete caught Myka before she left? Would she still leave or would the look on her partner's face alone make her think twice about leaving?


She hadn't noticed him running as fast as he could to her - out of breath and desperate - until she heard heavy breathing behind her and a voice calling her name, "Myka! Myka!"

"What is it, Pete?" she snapped, turning around. Of course she didn't mean to, but she was so caught up in the moment and so upset that she had let her emotions get the best of her.

"You can't leave, Mykes." he pleaded.

She knew that distant look in his eyes that had a faint tint of hope in them. They mirrored hers almost exactly.

"I've made my decision, Pete. I'm going to leave."

"Why though? I just wanna know why you have to so soon."

"I need to leave because… because I let everybody down. I trusted Helena when everybody tried to tell me I shouldn't. I went against everything in me because I thought she was different from the rest of the former Warehouse agents, but I was wrong."

"It was a mistake. And, if it means anything to you and HG, she really isn't that insane. She just wasn't making sense at the wrong." Pete tried to butt in, but Myka wouldn't hear of it.

"It was more than a mistake, Pete! Don't you get it? If I can't do something as easy as trusting and not trusting the right people then what can I do? Nothing. I can't do anything!"

"Trusting people isn't always easy, Mykes."

"I know, but I trusted somebody like it was the easiest thing in the world when I shouldn't have."

"I've trusted people and things I shouldn't have before too and I didn't leave. Everybody just left me while I stayed there, in the same spot - afraid to go away."

"But those weren't life or death situations!"

"This one isn't either!"

"For me it is, Pete." Myka confessed and then whispered quietly to herself, "For me it is."

Pete didn't exactly get the deep meaning behind what Myka was trying to say, but he figured it was important.

"What do you mean?" he asked after being hit with a bad vibe about what she had said. Not only worry and desperation were skimming his words but so was concern for his partner.

"It doesn't mean anything that important." Myka lied.

"Well I should get a say in this decision too."

"Fine, go right on ahead." she replied, simply, while going with him to the back of the car.

It was unlocked so Pete opened up the back door and sat down, looking towards the Warehouse. Myka sat down next to him and waited for him to talk.

"Look, Mykes. You can't just decide these big things by yourself. You need to have a consultant. You always say that you're kind of afraid of what will happen to us as Warehouse agents - like maybe going crazy or being bronzed or dying before we get to do everything that we'd like to do. You're going crazy right now so you're just like the other psychotic agents. But it's alright. I like women who have spunk to them. Besides, it's easy to fix if you're too crazy to handle."

"Pete." Myka said, intervening his thoughts. She was wondering what he was trying to say. _Maybe he's just being the weird guy I've always known or maybe he's imagining me as somebody else_, Myka thought to herself.

As if to, kind of, answer her thoughts he said, "Myka, you're like the Ring and I'm like Gollum - except I'm not old, I don't have white hair, I don't talk and walk weirdly, and I'm not as insane as him." Myka looked at Pete - confused as to what he was trying to say.

"Are you trying to say that I'm a possession of yours or -" she started, being swiftly cut off by Pete.

"No, not at all! I guess it does kinda sound like that though… Wait, you know about Lord of the Rings?!"

"I lived in a bookstore, I'm pretty sure that I've read Lord of the Rings, Pete."

"Have you watched the movies?" he asked.

"No, I've heard that they're really great and long though. Unlike other movies I guess they might serve the books justice." she smiled fondly, remembering when she would spend days reading each of the books. She snapped out of it, realizing that Pete was staring at her face - smiling right back at her. "How did we get to this conversation any way?" she pondered to him.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that I want you to know something."

"Okay, shoot it at me." she replied. Pete liked to teach her sayings and lines from movies and comic books - always with the hope that she would spontaneously say them from time to time just as he did.

"I want you to know that you mean a lot to me. I don't know what I would do if you left." he started, remembering that she was going to leave soon. His eyes welled up with tears, but he gulped and they quickly disappeared. He had a lump in his throat, as did Myka, but neither of them admitted to it. "I would be so heartbroken. You're always there for me and you're always looking over me. You laugh at my jokes with me even if you have no idea what the hell they mean! You're like a role model and a best friend to Claudia and I know that she's going to miss you. Artie doesn't think of you as a red shirt… he thinks of you as a beautiful women who will make someone very happy someday - let's just hope it's not him." Pete stopped talking to laugh. If they got together he would be creeped out, but he would respect them and just think of them as a comic book or movie couple or something. "Leena thinks of you as a daughter who's like the same age as her which makes you more like a sister to her, I guess. She's going to miss taking care of you and having another stable women in at the Warehouse and B&B to help her with things. Of course she has Claudia, but rumor has it they sometimes get into little feuds."

Myka smiled at his thoughtfulness, despite the lump in her throat. Before she was crying because she was going to miss the Warehouse and her family in it, but now she was going to cry because of that and because what Pete had said hit her soft spot.

"What do you think of me, Pete?" Myka asked, holding in her tears.

"What do you mean?" he asked, knowing what the question was but stalling.

"You said how everybody else thought of me as a daughter or a best friend or a sister, but you didn't say what you think of me as. With the way you described our relationship it could be anyone of those."

"_I_ think of you as a partner and a best friend." he said simply.

Myka was satisfied with his answer as she was looking towards the Warehouse. Starting to realize that she was making a big mistake leaving the people that she loved and the people who loved her back whether she was mistake free or full of mistakes.

What Myka didn't know was that Pete didn't just think of her that way. Of course he was telling her the truth - at least part of it - but he needed to say more. He really wanted to, but he was embarrassed and worried about what could happen. Pete was rarely the one to be worried and embarrassed, but he couldn't help it. He decided that he needed to say it before she was going to leave.

"But Myka." he said.

"What is it?" she replied, looking away from the Warehouse and back at Pete.

"_I_ think of you as more than just that."

"What else do you think of me as then?" she replied, not getting what he was trying to say.

"Everybody I love leaves me, Mykes. I can't risk letting you slip away from me too." he concluded.

Myka finally started to get what he was trying to say.

All of a sudden Pete started leaning in. He knew that it was a big risk that could change his whole life, but he had to do it. He wanted to profess his love for her before she left - if she was going to leave.

Their lips touched and there was a spark between them which neither of them would ever admit to - _probably_.

He cupped her chin in his hand and, to his surprise and liking, she leaned in too.

Pete Lattimer was kissing Myka Bering. - Myka Bering was kissing Pete Lattimer. - That was a turn of events that neither of them were expecting.

Myka lay her left hand on Pete's chest and she gripped his shoulder with her right hand.

They both pulled away, gasping for air. Myka was thoroughly embarrassed and she was glad that nobody else had seen what had happened.

She stood up, smoothed out her shirt, took Pete's hand, and led him out of the car. She closed the back door and walked up to the drivers seat.

Pete knew what he had done had risked a whole lot, but it was worth it.

Her taste was still lingering on his lips as he ran to the passenger side of the car and climbed in.

Myka started putting the keys in ignition when Pete took them away from her.

He slammed the car door. "If you want these you're going to have to come and get them!" he yelled, already running towards the Warehouse with Myka following.

She was still chasing him as they got inside.

When Pete and Myka came in, with smiles on their faces, everybody else in the room were extremely pale - almost as if they had seen a ghost.

Pete stopped, noticing that everybody was staring at them, and Myka bumped into him slightly.

She grabbed onto his arm and tried to snatch the keys away from his hand, now just playing with him but not wanting to leave.

"You have a lot of explaining to do, Myka." Pete joked as she looked up, noticing everybody around the two.


End file.
